Family Chased By Bear Blue Mountain Encounter Leaves Them Shaken

A 400-pound black bear, apparently angered by people building a hunting blind in its territory, chased a Slatedale family through the woods on Blue Mountain near Route 309 yesterday afternoon.

"It chased us for about three minutes," said Steve Kochmaruk, who had been building a deer-hunting blind on the south slope of Blue Mountain with his wife, Debbie, and their two small children. "I was yelling at the top of my lungs. It still wouldn't stop."

After the family had finished working on the blind at about 2 p.m., Kochmaruk said, they started walking toward the main trail that leads out of the woods. The site, he said, is just over a half mile from Route 309 and three miles north of New Tripoli.

"We were off the trail and my wife heard a noise, a stick break," he said. "She saw it coming down the hill toward us."

"At first, I thought it was a big black dog," said Mrs. Kochmaruk. "When I saw it was a bear, I froze. I didn't know what to do."

Kochmaruk said when he saw the bear lumbering toward them, he placed his family "in front of me, turned my back on the bear, and we started to run," he said. When the bear followed and started to pick up speed, Kochmaruk said he told Debbie to take their children, ages 5 and 8, and to run for the truck, which was parked on Route 309. Kochmaruk said he stayed and tried to frighten the bear away, but failed.

Black bears, widely held to be the least aggressive members of the bear family, are often scared away by loud noises caused by clanging two pans together, or simply by shouting.

"I started to yell and throw big rocks at it, and then it stopped," he said. But then the bear advanced again toward Kochmaruk, and this time the Slatedale man said he took off through the woods at full speed. The bear, he said, never got closer than 50 feet.

"Black bears are not supposed to be aggressive," he said. "I don't know if there were cubs in the area or not."

Generally, black bears become hostile when wounded, when they or their cubs are threatened or when their terrority has been infringed upon.

Mike Schmit, a spokesman for the Southeast Region of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said sightings of bears on Blue Mountain, once a suprising occurrence, are now "not suprising at all."

"There is more and more development inthose northern counties, and bears are being moved out," he said. "People are forcing them to expand their range."

Now that at least one bear's range apparently includes Kochmaruk's favorite hunting site, Mrs. Kochmaruk said her husband can build his blind without her. "I'm staying clear of the woods," she said.